Letters to the editor: Online tax fees are unfair

March 8, 2013 12:01 AM

March 8, 2013 12:01 AM

Initially, I was happy to see the insert that came with my Millcreek Township and Erie County tax bills for 2013 until I read the printing at the bottom. It read "convenience fee of 2.95 percent will be charged for each transaction."

That fee means I would be charged $24.49 during the discount period for the convenience of paying online. Meanwhile, I am doing the deposit for them. If I paid my school taxes in this "convenient" manner, that transaction would be about $37 or roughly $62 per year for this convenience. If anything, I might have expected a flat fee for this service. Instead, it is a percentage of my bill.

I pay several bills online and pay nothing for the convenience. Why should I be charged so much for doing part of their work? I have worked most of my life in offices and I know there must be internal bookkeeping done to keep track of who paid how much and when, but why should I be charged extra for their overhead?

That record-keeping expense has already been recovered by the taxes I am paying. Is Millcreek Township looking for additional revenue without increasing taxes? Imagine the total revenue this would raise if everyone took "advantage of this convenience."

No, I think I'll send them a check and a stamped return envelope for my tax receipt.

Carl Hanes|Millcreek Township

Vatican's treatment of women criticized

I read the Erie Times-News because it has the courage to print women columnists, like Ruth Marcus' column "Religions fearful of modern world struggle with women" (Erie Times-News, Feb. 15).

I was Catholic until age 18, then a Presbyterian minister and a Protestant until 2007 when I returned to the Catholic Church for five years after reading or scanning my 468 pro-Catholic books. That did not make me a scholar. But it became clear that the Vatican's passion was and is not transparency (honesty), but rather the image of its church! In 2012, I returned to the Presbyterian Church.

In 2012, the Vatican had the gall to say that Catholic women needed to learn "obedience" to the Vatican, which is always afraid of Catholic women's passion for transparency, not image. The Vatican has an iron door to keep women out of the Vatican. For decades, I and many men knew that there are many women who could be far better priests, bishops, popes, etc. Women are kept second-class members not because Jesus did not have female apostles, but because women's passion for truth is scary.

The Vatican's decision to keep women out of the Vatican raises questions about the truth of some Catholic dogma, especially Pope Pius IX's politics pressuring bishops to vote for the 1870s idea that when a pope speaks ex-cathedra, what he says about faith and morals is infallible. Many bishops were so disgusted they left Rome without voting. The beloved Pope John XXII said he had never spoken ex-cathedra and he never would. Apparently, he knew infallibility applies only to God.

Like many, I am not so much anti-Catholic as anti-Vatican. Catholic or Protestant traditions can get stale and moldy in me or anyone. All churches are in constant need of renewal or reformation or people will vote with their feet.

Charles F. Crist|Erie

America coming to shadowy finish

President Barack Obama stands at the podium with such arrogance, spewing more lies to finally drive the nail into the heart of America.

We the people were blinded with propaganda from a biased media to appease our new king. We no longer search for the truth, but follow blindly. Does not one see the danger lurking in the shadows waiting for the end of America's short life? Yes, Virginia, history does repeat itself, for we the people disregarded our Founding Fathers' words for the easy way out.

Now our president speaks of social justice, while taking from the job creators and distributing to those hypnotized with grand words of equal pay for less work. No longer do we search for work but smile broadly as the money is handed to us by our nanny the government.

Socialism never works. If you would only read history, you will see the devastation it brings to people and their countries.

So, America, when are you going to open your eyes to the truth, to see our republic being taken apart piece by piece by those we elected into office? Time is at hand to speak with strong, honest words in reclaiming our lost integrity for our children's future.

Jan C. Hipple|Centerville

War comparisons were incomplete

The guest voice article "Lack of readiness for War of 1812 offers lessons," written by an ROTC company commander and Penn State history major, attempts to compare the use of militias in the War of 1812 to "lack of readiness" as the cause of our "problems" in Iraq and Afghanistan (Erie Times-News, Feb. 22).

Tyler J. Payne could write for the Weekly Standard.

There is much to compare that was not mentioned.

The U.S. defense budget is more than most of the industrialized world combined. Who else has seven or eight carrier fleets, ICBMs, spy satellites, the most advanced aircraft, 700-plus bases in 170 countries, cameras in soldiers' helmets and innumerable varieties of special forces? No one. How on Earth can the U.S. not be ready to defeat countries barely out of the Stone Age? Yet we continue to get our butts kicked.

Men, women and materiel are not the issue. The people running the show are the problem. Today's political and military leaders are like 1812's William Hull. The incompetent Hull led us to disaster in Canada, defeated by forces that were half militia.

In 1812, as it is today, empire building was the end game. English territories in the West and the whole of Canada were to be the rewards in 1812. Oil and pipelines to the Caspian were at the end of the rainbow in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Government approval was given for U.S. privateers to run the British blockade of France. Our relations with England were still not good. The U.S. would do anything to give England a hard time. A new war with England was seen as a chance to appropriate the West and Canada for ourselves. Greed, ignorance and really bad planning resulted in more than we bargained for.

Martin C. Fox|Albion

Focus should be on the criminals

I agree that nobody needs "military- type" assault weapons, but the choice to have one or not seems to be pretty clear as a right under the Second Amendment.

When the amendment was written, there were no "assault-type" weapons that we see today, but the weapons that they fought with were the same ones that they hunted with. Why is the focus not on those who commit the crimes, and enforcing the laws already enacted? Punishment is a deterrent; punish the lawbreaker not the law-abiding citizen. The criminal only understands restraint from a position of strength.

You can wish upon a star that if you take away guns that crime will not happen. Guns or a weapon to inflict harm will be found by those who are bent on committing a crime, whether mentally deficient or not. Morality is the bigger issue, and this started long before the removal of prayer and Bible reading from our classrooms and our government, although personally I believe what we are witnessing is symptomatic of these court rulings.